House debates Questions without Notice
Indigenous Communities
Warren Snowdon Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs
2:28 pm
Kim Beazley Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition
Mr Beazley interjecting
Tony Abbott Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House
Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the Leader of the Opposition made an offensive remark and it should be withdrawn.
David Hawker Speaker
If the Leader of the Opposition made an offensive remark, he will withdraw it.
Kim Beazley Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition
Mr Speaker, what I said in response to the heckling of the member for O’Connor was that he was an expert in bashing Aboriginals. I withdraw it.
David Hawker Speaker
The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw without reservation.
Kim Beazley Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition
I withdrew it.
David Hawker Speaker
The Leader of the Opposition will stand up and withdraw.
Kim Beazley Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition
I stood and withdrew it, and I will do it again.
David Hawker Speaker
I thank the Leader of the Opposition. I call the member for Lingiari.
Warren Snowdon Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs
My question is to the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Minister, given the concerns that you have recently expressed for Indigenous families in Central Australia, particularly in remote communities, why was your department’s recommendation to establish one of the 65 family relationship centres in Alice Springs ignored by the government, leaving only one centre in Darwin to service the entire Northern Territory?
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
David Hawker Speaker
Order! A member of the opposition has asked a question. I presume members of the opposition want to hear an answer. I call the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
In the very first meeting I had in Darwin with the Chief Minister, she highlighted to me the sad plight of the people in Alice Springs. I did not go back to my department and say, ‘Let’s consider this’; I said to her on the spot, ‘I will assist you. Our department and government will assist you and work with the Northern Territory’—
Simon Crean Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development
Mr Crean interjecting
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
If you wouldn’t mind, you might just learn something. At that meeting I made a commitment that we would do so. The reason I was back in Alice Springs some two to three weeks later or shortly thereafter was not to give hollow promises but to deliver on a commitment to fundamentally change the way the town camps—the itinerant population that comes in—
Warren Snowdon Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs
Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. This is a question about family relationship centres, not about his trip to Central Australia.
David Hawker Speaker
The member for Lingiari will resume his seat. The minister is in order.
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
What we committed to there was not one centre. We committed to doing the following: first of all, upgrading what people refer to as the town camps, which all of us would understand to be suburbs which are run by Indigenous people rather than the municipal council.
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
$20 million, I inform the honourable member, so that power, water, sewerage and rubbish collection could be brought up to scratch. Over the next two years—
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
Mr Speaker, I wonder why it is that this upsets the Labor Party so. We also undertook to establish additional hostels and additional dry-out centres, to address the sad plight of people who are picked up by the night patrols, picked up by the police, who are taken to the one centre at the moment, given a shower, a bed for the night, clean clothes and sent on their way the next day and who then repeat the cycle—so that they will have somewhere to go where they can have real interventions to change their lives. I have been back a second time in order to try and secure the land to do that.
That is not all we are doing. We have also put into place in Mutujulu funding for a police station so that law and order can be delivered—real resources into real communities. We also promised last week to provide additional resources to the intelligence desk between Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory to get to the perpetrators of crime so that fewer people are subject to the abuse you are referring to.
Warren Snowdon Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs
Mr Snowdon interjecting
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
Furthermore, we have put a sniffer dog team into Darwin—
Warren Snowdon Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs
Mr Snowdon interjecting
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
and now we commit a further one to Alice Springs to get to the root and branch cause of these problems: substance abuse. We are going to the cause of the problem, not simply dealing with the symptoms, as governments of all persuasions with goodwill have done far too much of in the past, while dealing with the problem far too little.
Unidentified interjection - Hansard doesn't record who said this
Opposition Members:
Opposition members interjecting—
David Hawker Speaker
Order! The minister will resume his seat. Has the minister completed his answer?
Mal Brough Longman, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs
Yes.